January 21st saw our annual trip over to Cleethorpes for the penultimate day of Kaizen no-Michi’s Kangeiko on the beach. A nice little group of us went across this year with Jim sensei, Paul B, Ben, Lucy and Ellie, this bunch of crazy karate-ka were up at the usual 5am for the cold drive out.
When we arrived at the beach, we greeted our friends from both Selby Shotokan Karate Club and KNM before we began our mornings training. Down to the beach front for some quick warm ups to stretch out before the traditional beach front run to the pier and back watching for the slippery ground as we went due to a crisp -2 Degree C wind which battered us. Finishing the run, it was down on to the beach for the rest of our training, which began with some more warm ups now ready for some sandy karate, followed by some basic drills on the spot trying to have balance on sand and beat the person on the opposite side of the circle.
The next section looked at KNM’s Kaizen No-Kata which consists of the first few moves from each Heian and Junro Katas to for one kata, running through to count several times to get he hang of the kata we then had a go through full speed and power and mostly forgot how each kata starts, but it was good fun to give it a go. Next, we had a go at some kumite drills starting with oi-tsuki, then ren-tsuki and finally sanbon- tsuki and practising the required blocks for each combination. To round off our kumite we practised several counters to mai geri as beach tradition you must get covered in sand and catching kicks just right is the best way to ensure maximum sand time. Our final exercise of the day was a karate Mexican wave, starting in the sand we had to jump up punching gyaku tsuki and get back down quick for the return of the wave.
After training had finished it was time to retire to the local greasy spoon for a well-earned fry up, everyone was more than ready for this getting a healthy plate full, and a large plateful for Ben, who managed to clear up everyone else’s left overs as well. We also had the pleasure to celebrate the birthday of terry from KNM that morning, which is true dedication to karate turning out at that time in the morning to do karate on your birthday.
A big thank you to Andrew Sensei for inviting us across for the morning it was a pleasure as usual and we can’t wait until next year to do it all again, where we plan to try and train the whole of Kangeiko in York through out the week and join KNM for the last day as usual.
OSS
Ben